I'm looking forward to tthis evening's LEANZ meeting.* Green Party MP Julie Anne Genter is arguing against mandatory parking space as a condition of resource consents.

Proposing that local authorities should get out of regulating anything is interesting for a Green, given that they are defined by wanting to regulate. In practice they almost invariably prefer the monocultures of prescriptive regulation, over the competitive 'chaos' of pemissive diversity .

Originally from the United States, Ms Genter came to New Zealand in 2006 and completed a Masters in Planning Practice with first class honours at the University of Auckland.

If her position is what I expect, I'll be strongly agreeing that parking space requirements are an unwarranted tax on development, increasing housing costs and imposing on neighbourhoods the externalities of tarmac acres that could otherwise be used more intensively (and attractively).

By reducing competition for street parking, Councils can charge less to price ration it. Mandatory off-street parking subsidises car ownership at the expense of non-car owners, and at the expense of would-be home builders. If street parking is price rationed developers will make efficient decisions to provide off street parking at a level that matches demand.

Current stipulations also reduce the efficiency gains from public transport networks, though I hope Julie Anne does not confine herself to public transport because the Greens are soo boring on that.

Anti-Brown Auckland Councillor hostility to reduction in off-street parking stipulations earlier this year was just one of a number of areas in which Auckland 'drys' have turned into wets, to oppose Brown.

*Sorry – the 'next meeting notice' is out of date.